Crochet Profit Calculator – Free Download

It’s the most wonderful time of year: crochet season! While this year may look a little different in terms of where and how you sell your crochet goods, there is one thing that hasn’t changed… you should be valuing your time!

I often see posts throughout the crochet community asking about what should be charged to make various items, and there are always a wide range of responses. I’ve often seen the 3x cost of materials method mentioned.

I’m going to break down why I don’t like the 3x materials method, and provide you with a free download for a tool that will help you to price your items appropriately.

3x Cost of Materials Method

First, let me explain why the 3x cost of materials method is not the best choice if you are trying to truly earn a profit and have a sustainable business. Let me give you an example:

Let’s say I’m making a hat in one solid color using a worsted weight yarn. It requires about 110 yds of yarn, which is less than one skein. So, I purchased one skein of Brava Worsted yarn from WeCrochet. Brava costs only $2.49 per skein, and it has 218 yds. So the total cost in yarn for this hat is $2.49. This hat took me 1.5 hours to make. Using this method, I should charge $7.47 for this hat. That means I’m only profiting $4.98, and I’m making only $3.32 per hour!

I don’t know about you, but I’m not even getting out of bed for $3.32 per hour!

Profitable Crochet Pricing Method

Using my crochet profit calculator, we will take the same scenario, and see what price we come up with. The first step is to decide your ideal hourly wage. I personally want to make $12 per hour with my crochet, but no less than $10.

Next you’ll need to enter in the details of your yarn in the pink section.

If you don’t have the exact weight information, feel free to leave the ending weight blank, and the calculator will use the entire skein for your calculation.

The purple section will automatically calculate. Here you will see the total yardage used in your project, as well as the total cost of that yardage.

Next you’ll need to add in the amount of time you spent working on the project.

Notice that there is more than one row for this. This is so that you can compare different pricing scenarios side by side.

The final step is to play around with some pricing options. I’ve entered a few different options, starting at $15.

As you can see in the $15 scenario, I would only be making $9.17 per hour, which is below my preferred hourly rate, so the calculator shows that in red.

The next scenario, selling the hat for $20, I would be making $12.50 per hour, with a profit of $18.76. This does make the cut for my preferred hourly rate, and would be an acceptable price.

Of course the best scenario would be selling the hat for $25, which would leave me with a profit of $23.76, making $15.84 per hour.

I find it really helpful to see these comparisons side by side. Sure, in the first scenario, a profit of almost $14 sounds great, but not when I’m not meeting my ideal hourly rate.

Time Tracking

It is of course very important to keep track of the amount of time you spend on a project. whether that be simply keeping an eye on the clock when you work, tracking your time in a notebook, or using an app.

I personally use an app called Boosted to keep track of the time spent on each project. You can download it from the Google Play Store for free.

Orders and Payments

I use two different apps to help keep my orders and payments organized. The first is Etsy. If you are doing any kind of shipping, I highly recommend you set yourself up with an Etsy shop. You’ll save so much money in postage by printing labels directly from them, and their order management system is quite nice. You can easily see open orders, and mark an order as shipped or complete. If you sign up using my affiliate link, you’ll get 40 listings free! (and so will I!)

The next app that I’d recommend is Square. Square is essential if you are going to be doing any in-person sales! You can get a free card reader that connects directly to your phone. This allows you to accept credit and debit cards wherever your set up! I also like to use Square for taking deposits on large orders. You are able to customize invoices so that a certain amount is due immediately, while the remainder is due upon completion of the order. If you sign up for your free Square account using my affiliate link, you’ll get free processing on up to $1000 in sales over 180 days! (and so will I!)

Accounting

I personally have a separate bank account for my business. While this isn’t necessary as a sole proprietor, I just like to keep everything clearly organized. I also find it super helpful to keep track of all of my business related income and expenses throughout the year, rather than collecting a pile of receipts to sift through at tax time. I have tried several different programs, some free, and some paid, and I still find that excel has been the best option for me. Perhaps I will share a blank version of my bookkeeping spreadsheet in the future. Leave me a comment if you’d be interested in that!

And now, on to what you came here for…

Get the Freebie!

There are of course other factors to consider when pricing your items, such as the cost of your tools, packaging, marketing, etc. If you have a lot of other outside expenses, you should consider changing your hourly rate to something a bit higher, to help in offsetting those other cost factors. I hope that this calculator helps you grow your handmade business and earns you a fair wage.

Download your Crochet Profit Calculator for free by signing up for my newsletter below!

Note: THIS SPREADSHEET ONLY WORKS IN MICROSOFT EXCEL. IT WILL NOT WORK IN GOOGLE SHEETS. This excel spreadsheet has several formulas in it in order for it to complete the automatic calculations. It is very important that you only enter data into the spaces that are highlighted in yellow. If you would accidentally delete a formula and it can’t be undone, no big deal! Just come back over to the blog and download a fresh copy!

If you’ve enjoyed this freebie, please consider purchasing from one of my online shops, or shopping with my affiliate links. I so appreciate your support! All the details can be found here:

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Thanks for stopping by! Happy crafting!

Nicole

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